


Ruined by the Fall

by DracoIgnis, Dragon_and_Direwolf



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Demon Deals, Demon/Human Relationships, Demons, Dirty Thoughts, F/M, Loss of Virginity, Oral Sex, Ouija, Priests, Religion, Religious Content, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Sex, Sexual Fantasy, Sexual Tension, Victorian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:20:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27293341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DracoIgnis/pseuds/DracoIgnis, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragon_and_Direwolf/pseuds/Dragon_and_Direwolf
Summary: For over a year, Daenerys has been plagued by sexual fantasies about the new parish vicar Jon. She feels guilty about her desires - but perhaps Jon is not the innocent man she thinks he is. In fact, he may not be human at all.
Relationships: Jon Snow/Daenerys Targaryen
Comments: 33
Kudos: 379





	Ruined by the Fall

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that this story contains a lot of biblical references and quotations. You do not need to have any knowledge of Christianity to enjoy it, but if religious content offends you, this story is not for you.

“Herein is love,” Jon said, “not that we loved God, but that He loved us.”

 _Herein is love,_ Daenerys thought as she surveyed the vicar, _in the comely body of a man._

The church was small and cold; frost pecked the stone floor and ice cracked in the old oak pews. Daenerys could feel it melting below her bottom and wetting her dress. She should be freezing, she sensed, like her friend Margaery who was puffing breaths of mist and craning her neck for a slither of the pale sunlight. But the heat between her legs was keeping her snug. Whenever she caught the hard, grey eyes of the vicar, she felt her thighs burn.

 _Herein is love,_ she thought as she averted her gaze, _in the bold beckoning from a man._

Jon Snow was young, charismatic and handsome - and he had arrived at a most peculiar time in Daenerys’ life. Mere days after she had buried her beloved brother did the man take up appointment at the parish church. Soon, the forgotten Georgian building on the hill was once more filled with a lively congregation of women who had rediscovered their passion for Christ over tea with the new vicar.

Daenerys liked to think of herself as different from the blushing lot. After all, she had tended to the graveyard for years as an act of charity for the dead, and spent every Sunday kneeling on the dusty prie-dieu in silent prayer.

 _And yet,_ she thought, adjusting herself on the wood as Jon bent in over the Bible, his soft, black curls brushing past his square jaw, _the image of him visits me in the night, and I cannot tell who leads my hand to sin._

Jon glanced up. His eyes met with hers. In the flicker from the orange candles, she thought she saw him smirk. “I sleep, but my heart waketh,” he said, his voice powerful as it rang between the whitewashed walls, bashed to the stained glass windows, and settled in Daenerys’ very bones as a quiver, “it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying: open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, _my undefiled:_ for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night.”

Daenerys felt her cheeks glow pink. “That seems awfully brazen,” she whispered to Margaery, “don’t you think?”

“What was that?” Margaery was not looking at her, but staring ahead, her brown eyes focused on Jon. Her hands were rubbing together in her lap. Even with gloves on, Daenerys could see goosebumps prickling her skin. “Brazen?”

“What he just spoke.”

“It was? I didn’t notice.”

Daenerys pursed her lips, still she didn’t press the matter further. She settled back against the wood and bit her tongue as she attempted to listen with care. But her mind was already wandering, and her thoughts unfit for the scrutiny of the angels staring down at her from atop the altar.

 _Undefiled._ It was true, Daenerys thought, that she was of good standing; young and unmarried, and with a fortune left by her lost brother that would serve her into old age. But when she closed her eyes, it was not purity that plagued her. There, dancing across her black lids, were crude images of desire:

Jon, strong and naked as Adam had been in the Garden of Eden, atop of her, inside of her, the sweet taste of apples dripping from her lips as he claimed her virtue.

“As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons,” Jon’s voice echoed in her head. He felt near - as if he stood before her, in an empty room, speaking to her only. Her hands closed around the fabric of her skirt. She took in a deep breath. “I sat down under his shadow with great delight and,” his words turned to a whisper, like a warm bash of air against her ear as he finished: _“His fruit was sweet to my taste.”_

“Goodness me,” Daenerys gasped, her eyes fluttering open. She half expected to see the vicar on her left, but instead she was just staring at Missandei.

Her friend smiled and reached over to squeeze her hand. “I know,” she said and nodded.

“You know?” Daenerys asked. Her knees were pressed together. She was breathless, and her heart was throbbing in her throat, making it impossible for her to raise her voice had she wanted to. “You heard it too?”

 _“Perfect love casts out fear,”_ Missandei quoted with a sigh of delight, “it is beautiful, is it not?”

“It is,” Daenerys agreed stumped, “but not what he said. What about his _sweet fruit?”_

“Sweet fruit?” Missandei repeated confused, but before Daenerys could answer her, Margaery leaned in on her right and smirked:

“I fear our dear friend hears what her heart desires.”

“Oh, shush!” Daenerys’ face flushed as her friends giggled and drew away. Yet she couldn’t help but think: _they are right._

It was a grim realisation, but one she had brooded over for months now and which resurfaced every Sunday when she entered this home of God. No matter how often she tried to reign in her thoughts and follow along in the psalms, her focus would slip from the Bible in her hands to Jon’s features, and she would see not a man to respect but a man to _crave._ It was at its worst when he looked her in the eyes as he did now, openly and unchallenged by his own emotions, his grey gaze making her body soft. It was then she couldn’t tell apart his sermon from her thoughts, his reality from her fantasy.

His hands from her own, dragging from her chin to her bosom, resting upon the black lace of her dress, sensing her rapidly beating heart just below her heated skin. His palms from her own, brushing down her stomach, across her legs, to the edge of her skirt where decency resided. His fingers from her own, touching her ankle, her shin, reaching up beneath her underskirts toward her wet virtue.

“What is the matter?” Margaery asked and leaned down to peer at Daenerys.

Daenerys snapped in a breath of air as she found herself bent forward, her hand pushed under her skirt, her fingers stretching up as they made their way toward her inner thighs. She quickly withdrew and mumbled: “I felt an itch,” though she sensed the blush on her cheeks told her friend otherwise.

All the same, Margaery merely nodded as she stood. “The sermon is over,” she said, and it was only then that Daenerys realised that most of the pews had emptied. There was a flutter of dresses and suits at the door as couples exited into the cool October wind. “I wasn’t sure if you’d fallen asleep or were trying to hang behind.”

“Don’t be silly,” Daenerys said, but Missandei’s hand on her shoulder kept her seated.

“We will walk the gardens,” her friend smiled, _“slowly._ Meet us when you are, ah,” she threw a glance toward Jon at the altar, his back turned on them as he adjusted his collar, _“satisfied.”_

“You shouldn’t speak such words in a church,” Daenerys warned her, but Margaery just laughed:

“Oh, Dany! The women here whisper worse prayers before the vicar. Come on.” She reached out and grabbed Missandei by the arm, and the two of them walked outside, leaving just Daenerys and Jon to the quiet.

Daenerys remained seated as she shyly watched Jon perform his usual duties; putting away the bibles, tidying the altar space, and collecting the coins a few hopeful girls had left wrapped in perfumed handkerchiefs. She imagined they hoped their act of charity would spur on Jon’s admiration. When he caught her looking, she politely said: “You have come to a generous parish, vicar. The women here appreciate your teachings.”

“Do you, Miss Targaryen?” Jon asked and straightened up, his hands folded at his front. “I fear I saw you doze off.”

Daenerys flushed and started: “Not at all,” but, at Jon’s piercing stare, she found herself eyeing the floor as she admitted: “I have not been sleeping well recently.” She closed her eyes. She saw him: Jon, beneath her duvet, his hands grabbing their way across her helpless body, his lips tasting the dew of her skin.

“In a sense, we are all asleep,” Jon said. She could hear him move across the stone floor. She could sense the creak from the pew as he sat down. The space between them was vast yet, in her mind, she imagined it to be small and intimate. “We shall not truly awake until we rise from the earth.”

“Forgive me, but it is not such sleep that troubles me,” Daenerys said kindly as she glanced toward Jon. He was watching her, but his eyes were no longer hard; they were glowing in the candlelight, and burning with the same heat as the smirk on his lips. She wanted to look away. She couldn’t.

“You are at rest until you close your eyes,” Jon concluded.

“I am,” she spoke surprised. She had not expected him to understand at once.

“You fear the nightmares.”

“I fear that thoughts will settle,” she spoke with care, “that should not fester a pure mind.”

“Who decides purity?” Jon asked. He was leaning against the wood, almost nonchalant, Daenerys thought. Not like a vicar speaking to a parishioner, but a friend beckoning his female acquaintant.

 _I am seeing things again,_ Daenerys reminded herself, and she tried hard to focus on Jon’s lips as they moved, as he spoke, as he offered her a wisdom she should surely engrave in her mind. _I am seeing things though my eyes are wide open._

“Then close them,” Jon said.

Daenerys blinked. She stared at Jon, and he looked back at her, his smirk growing. “Did I speak?” she asked perplexed.

“To have your eyes open is not to see,” Jon said, and he reached over and gently dragged his fingers down across Daenerys’ forehead until her lashes bashed to his tips, “close them, Miss Targaryen, and tell me what you see.”

As Jon’s fingertips pressed her lids closed, Daenerys felt like the candles around her burst aflame. As if all the wax in them glowed at once, and the frost on the floor melted into puddles, and the ice in the pews became ashes that became embers that became fire, licking up around her thighs, making her skin wet. She took in a shivering breath. She tasted heat in the air.

“Tell me what you see,” Jon urged.

Daenerys licked her lips. “I see-” she started and stopped. Her tongue could barely move - it felt dry and limp in her mouth, just like her body seemed to succumb to the sensation of burning ashes. She could smell it - she could taste it; the sweet bite of an apple. “I see-”

“Who committed the first sin?”

“Eve,” Daenerys replied.

“Was Eve not snared?”

“She was.”

“Was Adam?”

Daenerys swallowed. Her thoughts felt scrambled up in her head, like a puzzle with pieces missing. “Adam ate at Eve’s ask,” she finally replied.

“The sin is Adam’s, for he ate from his woman’s hand knowing the sin, whereas she ate knowing only the lure of the devil. So man sinned at woman’s hand, but the woman desired at the devil’s.”

Sweat had started to trickle down Daenerys’ face. The warmth was filling her body, taking over her lungs, claiming her heartbeat. She breathed: “I do not understand,” and at her lips, Jon replied:

_“Was his fruit sweet to your taste?”_

Daenerys’ eyes snapped open. For a second, she thought she saw Hell itself with its flames and its raw heat, and Jon, naked and hard and greedy, his eyes dominant as he hovered her. But then the cold closed in, and the pale sunlight seemed distant, and all was as before; the frost on the stone, the freezing wind creaking in the wood, and Jon, solemnly dressed, his hands resting in his lap as he watched her.

Daenerys took in a deep breath. She let go of it in awed confusion. “What just happened?” she asked.

 _“Perfect love casts out fear,”_ Jon said gently, his voice polite. “You wear black, Miss Targaryen - do you mourn your brother still?”

Daenerys glanced down her dark garbs. When Rhaegar passed, she wore black for a year. When Viserys died, she felt it inappropriate to not honour him in the same way. But truth be told: “Perfect love was not in my heart for him.” Daenerys glanced up at Jon, almost ashamed, as she admitted: “We tolerated each other, no more.”

“Yet you tried to contact him,” Jon spoke and, before Daenerys could question him, he explained: “Your friends told me you own a planchette. You spoke with the dead not long after his funeral.”

Daenerys felt her cheeks heat with annoyance. “You spoke to Miss Tyrell?” she presumed. “It is true. I contacted him, but he would not speak with me.”

“He left no message?”

“He only-” Daenerys stopped herself before she could admit: _he only left me desolate._

It was true; Daenerys had loved her brother imperfectly, but his feelings for her were more powerful. _Hate,_ she knew, _he hated me._ In the days following his death, she found herself desperate to hear his voice one last time, to hear him speak a word of kindness before his passing. But a seance left her with nothing but pain. For a year, her thoughts have been numb and her dreams disturbed. _Even God’s home cannot offer me relief,_ she thought, eyeing the ceiling as she finally spoke:

“He played one last trick on me, and I have not had peace since.” There was a movement at the door. Out of the corners of her eyes, Daenerys spotted Margaery and Missandei peering inside. She quickly pinched some colour back in her cheeks and forced a smile at Jon. “Forgive me, I have taken up too much of your time.”

Jon looked back at her, thoughtfully, with a slight tug at the sides of his lips. If she didn’t know better, she’d think him chuckling. But his voice was grave when he stood and shook her hand. “A pleasure, Miss,” he said and stepped aside to allow her to access the walkway. But as she brushed past him, their shoulders just touching, she heard him whisper at her ear: “You should try again - the dead speak with many voices.”

Daenerys stopped and stared back at him over her shoulder.

Jon smiled and repeated: “A pleasure, Miss,” before turning on his heels and disappearing into a room behind the altar.

 _The dead speak with many voices._ As his words lingered in her mind, Margaery and Missandei excitedly took her arms in theirs as they stalked their way through the garden and downhill toward the township.

“What did he say?” Missandei asked.

“Did you ask him for tea?” Margaery teased.

Daenerys watched the sky. Pale clouds stretched across the cold blue. It looked like it would be a chilly afternoon. “He suggested I contact my brother.”

“Your brother! But he is-”

“-deceased,” Missandei spoke with confusion.

“Did you tell him about my planchette?” Daenerys asked and looked between the women. “I cannot believe it. He must think me mad!”

“Then he is mad too - he wants you to speak with the dead!” Missandei reminded her.

Daenerys turned to scold Margaery, but found her friend looking thoughtful. “What?”

“I was gifted something recently,” she spoke slowly, as if tasting every word. Her brown eyes were hesitant when she looked at Daenerys. “It may be what you’re looking for.”

“What is it?” Daenerys and Missandei asked curiously.

* * *

“It’s a _talking board.”_

The smooth, wooden square had been sanded down to perfection. Engraved in black across its surface was the alphabet, with each upper corner spelling _YES_ and _NO._ Daenerys let her fingertips run across the lettering as she glanced up at Margaery. “A talking board?” she asked. “How does it work?”

“You use this,” Margaery explained and placed a smooth, wooden triangle on the board. It had a round hole in the middle, just large enough to allow a letter to peer through. “You hold on to it - just like your planchette - and let the spirits talk.”

“Who gave this to you?” Missandei asked in awe as she too reached out to touch the board.

“My brother,” Margaery said, “as a joke. My husband told me to get rid of it - he’s afraid of ghosts.”

“So you brought it to me instead?” Daenerys said bemused.

Margaery shrugged. “You’re not afraid of anything!” she reasoned, and though Daenerys knew she was making excuses, she couldn’t help but to think of the hellfire she saw earlier in the church and agree:

“I am not.”

The mansion was mostly clad in darkness, though the living room was glowing snugly orange in the flickering light from the fireplace. They were seated around a small table, the board placed in its midst, with Margaery and Missandei each claiming a soft armchair by the flames. Outside, the sky had darkened and the shadows in the living room shivered starkly across the walls. On a normal eve, Daenerys would find herself in bed by now, reading until the light went out, afraid of what she might see once her eyes shut.

But with the fantasy of Jon’s bare, brutal body still stuck on her mind, Daenerys was grateful for the distraction that her friends offered, and it was with unabashed excitement that she reached out and clasped her hands atop the triangle. “Should we begin?” she asked.

Margaery was first to join her, followed by Missandei who sent them hesitant looks. “How does it move?” she asked.

“First we call upon the dead,” Margaery explained, “and when they’re here, they will move our hands.”

“Can you call upon any dead?”

“We can try,” Margaery said, her eyes slipping from Missandei to Daenerys. “Is it your brother we should ask for?”

Daenerys nodded. “I want my peace,” she explained.

 _Peace._ As they sat in silence, thinking of Viserys and urging his coming, Daenerys’ body felt warm and soft from the flames. _Peace._ She had not known it for a while, battling her desires at night, fighting her cravings during the day. Before, she was a righteous woman - a lady no one could fault, someone the men in town admired and desired for her purity. _But now,_ Daenerys thought, feeling her eyes shut as the silence and heat took over, _I am a sinner of mind._

She saw him again; the vicar, before her, his lips on her, his hands on her. A man who had given himself to God was being defiled in her very mind. And yet she couldn’t make herself open her eyes, couldn’t make herself let go of the image of impurity and lust that took over her body and made her heartbeat quicken.

She wanted him, she knew; she needed him. _I sleep, but my heart waketh._

“Viserys, are you there?” Margaery’s voice sounded loud and clear, and Daenerys yelped in surprise as the wood dragged her hand up. As the women all peered at the board, they saw the word _NO_ staring back at them through the hole.

“Who pushed it?” Missandei asked.

Margaery shook her head and stared at Daenerys, but Daenerys breathed: “I was asleep.”

“If it’s not Viserys,” Margaery said, glancing between them, “then it’s something else.” As if on cue, the wood skipped, and as the women pulled their hands back, the triangle stopped on _YES._

“Who pushed it?” Missandei asked again, her voice a bit more desperate.

Daenerys suckled on her inner cheek as she eyed the board with scepticism. “It could be Viserys,” she said. “He has always been fond of scaring me.”

“He certainly has succeeded in frightening me,” Missandei said, but Margaery simply placed her hands back on the triangle and gave them a look of impatience.

“We have someone,” she said, “we shouldn’t stop now.”

“Very well,” Daenerys said, joining her friend. Missandei was the last one to follow. As her hand pushed to the wood, Daenerys spoke: “Do you have a name?”

For a moment, nothing happened. Then, the triangle edged its way to _NO._ Before Missandei could say anything, Margaery chuckled: “Okay, _that_ was me.”

“Are you jesting?” Missandei sighed and sent Daenerys a pained look. “This will keep me up all night!”

Daenerys raised her brows at Margaery: “I thought we were-” she started, but the wood started edging, this time drawing down toward the alphabet.

“Again?” Missandei asked as the hole showed _N,_ but Margaery shook her head with big eyes as she protested:

“I didn’t do it!”

As the triangle kept moving, Daenerys leaned in, and she read the letters out loud: _“N, A, C, H, A, S, H.”_

“Nachash?” Margaery said and wrinkled her nose. “What does that mean?”

“Is it a name?” Daenerys asked. She looked to Missandei who were just staring at the board, her face pale in the glow from the flames. When she spoke, her voice was quiet:

“It’s the serpent.”

“What serpent?”

“From the Garden of Eden,” Missandei said. She peered at Daenerys, almost shyly, as if she was sorry to share her knowledge with the women. “The one who tricked Eve into eating the apple.”

Instinctively, Daenerys found her tongue rubbing her lips. She could taste it again; the sweet bite of the fruit lingering just at the tip of her tongue. “Man was the original sinner,” she spoke, thinking back on her conversation with Jon. As her friends watched her, she explained: “The vicar explained to me that though Eve was the first to eat of the apple, she was fooled, and so the sin was Adam’s.”

“I am not sure I understand,” Margaery said.

“I think we’re speaking to Viserys,” Daenerys continued, and as she spoke, her voice gained heat, “and he’s playing me for a fool, just like he did a year ago.”

“What _happened_ a year ago?” Missandei asked, making Daenerys’ lips snap tightly shut.

Margaery agreed: “You never said. Only that you tried to contact him.”

Daenerys took a deep breath as she looked between them. _I never said,_ she knew, _how could I?_ How could she look her friends in the eyes and explain the crude fantasies she’d allowed into her dreams, into her hands, into her heart? Lack of sleep, that was a decent explanation; but the troubles that plagued her every waking moment? Those were too intimate to share, even with friends. _He made me a sinner in death,_ she thought, _letting darkness into my heart as he conversed with the devil._

But out loud, she said: “I want to know what you want,” and she placed her hands on the wood. Margaery and Missandei barely managed to get their fingers on there before it started moving, spelling out:

 _“John, One-Nine,”_ Daenerys said. She looked between the others perplexed. “Is that from the Bible?”

“Have you got one?” Missandei asked and got to her feet. She soon retrieved the black book from a shelf nearby, and she flickered through it as she settled back in her armchair. “Here it is: _If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”_ She looked up, just as perplexed as Daenerys had been.

“Do you have anything to confess?” Margaery asked with a laugh.

Daenerys couldn’t even smile. She felt a lump work its way up her throat, claiming her breath as it went. When her friends noticed her panicked look, the laughter died out at once. “Sorry,” Margaery said, ashamed. “I didn’t mean-”

“I want you to leave me alone,” Daenerys said, slamming her hands back down onto the wood. This time, her friends didn’t join - they just watched her as she rocked the triangle across the board, hovering the letters with desperation. “Can you do that? Can you begone from my life, let death be final?”

The wood moved. It spelled: _“Solomon, Five-Five.”_

“Solomon,” Missandei repeated, flickering through the Bible with haste, “that must be _Song of Solomon._ And that verse is: _I rose up-”_

There was a knock on the door. The women stirred, and Missandei’s eyes flickered from the Bible to Daenerys, her lips parted mid-sentence though her voice had died out.

Daenerys looked over her shoulder into the dark hallway behind her. She then peered back at Margaery. “Would your husband come looking for you?” she asked.

“Of course not,” Margaery said, though she didn’t sound certain. She glanced at Missandei. “Would Grey?”

“He’s out of town,” Missandei replied quietly. The women turned back to stare at Daenerys.

Daenerys took a sharp breath through her nose. Then she rose to her feet, turned to face the hallway, and walked with swift steps into the darkness. She stopped before the door, lingering in the shadows caused by the sparse moonlight filtering through the windows. She was listening; there was the cracking from the fireplace behind her, and the light wind whistling across the courtyard, but otherwise nothing stirred.

 _Perhaps they have left,_ she mused, and she was about to peer through the window when there was another knock. She swallowed. She reached for the handle of the bolt. She unlocked, dragged the door open, and spoke:

“It’s the vicar!” She was so surprised that she barely thought to greet Jon. But it was him; broad and dark in his fitted suit, the look demanding a different kind of authority than what she knew from his priestly garbs. Still, the golden chain around his neck was the same. In the sparse light, the gold glimmered richly. “Good evening,” she merely said.

“Good evening, Miss,” Jon spoke, and he dragged the hat off his head and held it to his chest as he sent her a kind smile. “Forgive me for calling in so late.” He looked at her before nodding at something over her shoulder.

Daenerys turned to find Missandei and Margaery huddled up in the doorway to the living room, their faces pink with delight. Before Daenerys could think to say anything to them, they spoke at once:

“We should be on our way.”

“Please, don’t leave on my accord,” Jon spoke, though the women had already grabbed their coats.

“Yes, please don’t leave on the vicar’s accord,” Daenerys said as she sent her friends a saying look.

It made no difference: Missandei gave Daenerys a quick hug as she breathed: “I must be home with my husband,” and she shook Jon’s hand on her way out. Margaery too hugged Daenerys though she lingered for a moment at Jon’s side, letting him know:

“We were just studying the Bible, like good faithful women.”

“I’m sorry,” Daenerys said as she watched her friends take off before turning back to Jon, her cheeks a little pink. “They are married women, but they can act like young girls at times.”

“Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein,” Jon quoted with ease. “It is good for us to be open and free of constraints. There is purity in letting go of our inhibitions.”

 _Perhaps some,_ Daenerys thought, watching Jon’s face as the moonlight pecked his cheeks and made his grey eyes glimmer akin thunderous clouds. _But if I were to free myself of all constraints, I should never hope to see Heaven._ As Jon met her gaze, she shyly averted her eyes and stepped aside. “Please, come in,” she offered, holding out her hands as she urged, “I can take your coat.”

Soon, they were seated in the heat of the living room. As Daenerys served tea, Jon inspected the board on the table with interest. “So this is a _talking board,”_ he mused.

“You know of them?” Daenerys said surprised. She sank into the sofa as she watched Jon on the other side of the table. He was leaning onto his knees, his black curls dancing across his face as he reached out to touch the wood. “Miss Tyrell got this one for me. She supposed it would work better than my old planchette.”

“And did it?”

Daenerys opened her mouth to speak when her eyes fell on the Bible. It laid open on the spare armchair, the page folded from where Missandei had been reading. As if understanding at once, Jon reached out, picked up the book, and spoke:

 _“I rose up to open to my beloved; and my hands dropped with myrrh, and my fingers with sweet smelling myrrh, upon the handles of the lock.”_ He looked up and smirked: “Song of Solomon. Some would consider this improper reading for an unmarried woman.”

“Yet you quoted it at today’s sermon,” Daenerys reminded him, her cheeks warm. She thought too late: _or were I perhaps imagining once more?_ \- but to her relief, Jon nodded and agreed:

“So I did. I suppose you were paying attention after all.” He put the Bible aside and folded his hands over his knee as he leaned back into the softness of the chair. His eyes rested on her. “So you made contact with your brother,” he assumed.

Daenerys sighed and sipped her tea. “I made contact,” she said, “but with what I do not know. It calls itself _Nachash.”_

“The serpent,” Jon spoke calmly and nodded. “I suppose it would.”

“You expected it?” Daenerys said surprised. She held her tea in her hands as she watched Jon nod again, his expression kind. “You said to contact my brother.”

“How well do you know Genesis?” Jon asked. There was a smile on his lips - or perhaps a smirk. In the flicker of the flames, Daenerys found that it could be either, just like his eyes - hard, or soft. Passive, or aggressive.

“Which part?”

“At church, I told you to close your eyes,” Jon reminded her. “Why might that be?” As Daenerys didn’t speak, he said: “The serpent tempted Eve to eat from the tree, and he said: _For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."_

Daenerys couldn’t help a laugh. As the vicar sent her a peculiar look, she put her tea down with a blush. “Forgive me,” she said, “but I cannot trust my eyes to be closed. It is then that I see the evil that my brother allowed in.”

“Your brother?” Jon urged.

“He-” Daenerys started, but she paused. Once more, she found herself incapable of speaking the truth; not to her friends, not the vicar. _It is after all he who haunts me,_ she reminded herself and stared at the floor before her feet.

Jon licked his lips slowly. “Who committed the first sin?”

“We spoke of this already,” Daenerys protested.

“Did Eve?”

“It was Adam,” Daenerys said, looking pointedly at Jon. It dawned on her then; she had not yet asked him the purpose for his late visit. She mused: “Are you here to test my biblical knowledge?”

“Eve ate knowing the lure of the devil,” Jon continued. “Man sinned first, but the woman let herself be ensnared before sin was created.”

“How does this relate to my brother?”

“You have sin in your heart,” Jon said.

They were simple words, but to Daenerys they felt like a slap to the face. Her heart skipped a beat so fiercely that she pressed her hands to her bosom, afraid that it might not start again. She stared at Jon, and he peered back at her, a smirk on his lips. “I do?” she whispered. _I do,_ she knew, but to say it out loud felt damning.

“You blame your brother,” Jon said, “but he is just a man, and woman was ensnared first.”

“Forgive me,” Daenerys said, “but I do not follow.”

 _“Yes, you do.”_ Jon’s voice was in her head - and his lips had not even moved. As Daenerys stared at the man before her, his smile deepened, and his grey eyes glimmered in the flames. They were licking up her blackened chimney, growing larger and larger, until they seemed to be stretching into the living room itself. Sod and ash filled the air. Still Daenerys sat, and she stared, and Jon’s words continued in her head: _“You sought your brother, but it was me that you let in. You knew you were being fooled, the very night your hands wandered and your body succumbed to its desires, but you bit the apple and opened your eyes to all good - and all evil.”_

“Who are you?” Daenerys whispered. She sensed she should be frightened - of the flames, licking close to her skin, and the man, sitting before her - but instead, she felt what she had felt for a year now; pure _desire._ A craving to submit, to sin, to allow her innocence to be lost.

“You know what I am.”

“A demon?”

“Perhaps. The dead speak with many voices.”

“You are not a creature of God.”

“We are all creatures of God,” Jon corrected her with a click of his tongue. He was changing before her; not physically, but in aura. She sensed no priestly virtue, just throbbing passion - a darkness that should be chased away by light, but which she craved to welcome. Her thighs burned once more. She felt a wetness peck her skin. “Some of us fall, and some of us rise - but we are all created from the same matter.”

“Sinning,” Daenerys said, “leads us the furthest away from Heaven.”

“You have not been listening, _Miss.”_ Jon rose. His shadow fell across her, and Daenerys felt it push her back into the sofa, trapping her to the backrest. It was as if he controlled her with his mere presence.

 _He is no Adam,_ Daenerys thought, remembering her fantasies, soaked in desperate innocence. _But I am Eve - ensnared._ Her fingers buried into the fabric of the sofa. It groaned beneath her, but it did not move. She couldn’t even roll her head back as Jon pushed the table aside and stepped before her - still staring, still smirking.

“At today’s sermon, I spoke: _herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us._ To love with a pure heart is easy. After all, the light is beautiful. But to love the darkness, to embrace it, and still come out whole?” Jon shook his head. “That, Miss, is the sinner redeemed. Remember: _God loved the world of sinners lost, and ruined by the fall._

 _“Salvation full, at highest cost,”_ Daenerys whispered, Jon’s eyes pleasantly surprised, _“He offers free to all.”_ She swallowed. She closed her eyes. She understood:

All this time, she had not been desiring Jon because of Viserys’ spite. Her venture into speaking with the dead had brought forth the temptation, but she had let it in, let it join her heart in the shape of Jon, and willingly submitted herself to sin. She craved it more than she craved salvation. _And only I am to blame._

“Not yet,” Jon spoke. He leaned in over her. His hands grabbed a hold of the backrest on either side of her face, his knee slipped up to rest between her legs, pushing her skirts up, revealing her bare, heated thighs. When she looked up, she peered right into his eyes. “First, you have to let me in.”

“I did,” Daenerys whispered. She felt weak. She felt aflame; her body aching for his touch. “I opened the door.”

“Yes, you called upon me, and you kept me waiting for a year, stuck amongst silly girls with perfumed handkerchiefs and old men begging forgiveness for perversities,” Jon said bitterly, his lips so close that his warm, ragged breath bashed across her face. “But you have not _let me in.”_

“You intend to possess me?”

“I intend to take you,” Jon said, lifting his hand, grabbing her by the chin. “But the serpent can only ask,” he said, leaning closer, breathing into her mouth as he spoke: “But Eve must bite.”

Daenerys kissed him. She did not know wherefrom she got the strength, but she grabbed him by the collar, his golden necklace twisting around her fingers, and she dragged him atop of her - his light eyes, his dark shadow, his heavy body, his needy hands.

She had let him in - and now, he had her:

He had only two hands, but Daenerys felt like she was surrounded by tens of men the way fingers brushed to her bosom, ripped at her skirts, exposed her skin and pinched it bright red with greed. Where his touch was rough, his tongue was smooth; wet, and inquisitive, he licked her neck and her breasts and her nipples, and he feasted on the dew between her legs, tasting her innocence with his commanding lips.

Daenerys moaned and wriggled on the sofa, lost to the sensation of Jon. Her fantasies had been dirty, but dull, with her hands the only tool she could pleasure herself with. But Jon knew places to touch her that she hadn’t even thought of - intimate areas where her fingers had not yet ventured, but where his tongue gave her relief.

He kissed her. He licked her. He felt her - he filled her. His fingers were tough, but knowing, and the pain that Daenerys had expected never came. She ached, but for more, and she cried out, but from desire, her body weak and willing beneath his hardened frame.

And when he took her, she knew that if damnation was to be her price, it was worth the fleeting moment of bliss that settled in her mind and shut out all else. For a second, she had no thoughts. She merely lived, and breathed, and existed, as a body taken by Jon’s force, claimed with his hands, marked by his teeth. For a second, she sensed that perhaps she was not even that. She was a feeling, a glimmer of fulfilment, of happiness, of excitement, of divinity.

And she hoped that God did indeed love his sinners most - because what she was begging Jon to do would leave no Heaven’s gates open for her without forgiveness.

The sofa groaned. The flames licked up around them. Daenerys felt the burn across the skin, but it left no marks, and it caused her no pain. She was just warm, and slick with juices, and breathless, her voice rough from crying Jon’s name to his shoulder. When he took her, he made her body arch, and when he left her, she pulled at him for more, making him claim her again and again.

He took her innocence on the sofa. Her virtue was long gone by the time he bent her over the table and had her again, from behind, her skirts ripped and discarded, her breasts exposed to the heat, her hair a mess in his hands, her lips begging him not to stop.

The floor became their playground; the wood cool and the carpet rugged, Daenerys pink and wet and aching by the time he rolled her over and claimed her for the last time that night, spilling his seed deep inside of her. She sensed that he could go on, his body still hard to her touch and his lips as eager as the first time they kissed.

But he let her body succumb to its weakness, dragged her close to rest in his arms, her nose nestled to his chest, her hands clinging onto the shape of his hip. As she breathed, the flames subsided, becoming mere embers in the fireplace, and the candles around them flickered out, leaving them in blissful darkness.

Jon kissed her hair. He said: “You must command my leave.”

Daenerys’ hands stroked him slowly, felt his body, engaged with every dip of his muscle and rounding of his abs. “And if I do not?” she whispered. She tried to imagine: Jon, gone, back to the flames below earth, the church once more empty, the silence once more hers. Once, she would’ve prayed for it - for all the women in the parish to be gone, for Jon to no longer be a vicar, for the grounds on the hill to be her place of solace once more.

But now, she found herself repeating: “And if I do not?” as she peered into his grey eyes.

Jon licked his lips as he watched her. “We read from the Song of Solomon,” he said, “do you know the next part? _I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone: my soul failed when he spake: I sought him, but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave me no answer.”_

“You take me for a fool,” Daenerys smiled, “they found each other in the gardens.”

“So you have read your Bible,” Jon chuckled and brushed her hair with his fingers.

“I can quote too,” Daenerys said, circling his chest with her fingers as she continued: _“I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me.”_

“His desire is indeed,” Jon said. He reached down. He turned her face up - and he kissed her, hard, on the mouth, his tongue leaving her the taste of him and of herself. When he broke, he spoke: “We will both be ruined by the Fall.”

“So be it,” Daenerys said, and she closed her eyes as she buried her face at his neck. “I have bitten the apple - let me enjoy its sweetness.” And as Jon held her close and darkness settled, sleep taking over with its tender touch, Daenerys was no longer plagued by images and desires and fantasies. She found rest - and for the first time that year, she slept in peace.

**Author's Note:**

> I am so sorry for how late this was posted! Of course, there had to be one day in the month when everything went a bit awry - today just happened to be that day!
> 
> This was a story that I really enjoyed working on. Those of you who have read my other stuff knows that I love doing research and generally tie things together in odd ways. Hopefully, it was enjoyable to read and not just a chance for me to go a bit nuts with religious references!
> 
> The hymn quoted in here is "God loved the world of sinners" by Martha M Stockton from 1886. It's what inspired the title of the story, so it deserved a shout out.
> 
> I have to say.. I want more of DragonandDirewolf's art of demonic priest Jon because WOW, that piece gets me every time I look at it. I can feel the sinner in me stir.. (who am I kidding - we all come from the GoT fandom, we're all sinners!).
> 
> Thanks so much for reading! If you liked it, please let us know!


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